Even though he makes arguments diametrically opposed to Taylor, Niall Ferguson is in many respects the heir to A. J. P. Taylor. They are both readable authors who stake out controversial claims at odds with the conventional interpretationss of the past.

A historian who has the same combination of academic rigour and controversiality as A.J.P. Taylor is Herid Fel.

Herid Fel is an absent-minded, pipe-smoking, stout man with thin grey hair, who famously confines himself mostly to a small study on the top floor of his school in Cairhien. He is well-regarded for his scholarly work, but his arguments are sometimes hard to follow and his conclusions not always appreciated. The fact that he sometimes disagrees with his own notes does not inspire confidence.

Still, the insight he provides is profound. His view of a cyclic history informs important decisions to be made. For instance, he asserts that the upcoming war won't be the last one, as every age has its own Last Battle. As he says, "It won't be the Last Battle. Even if the Dragon Reborn seals the Dark One's prison again as well as the Creator made it. Which I don't think he can do. (...) Still it has to be sealed up by somebody. The Wheel, you see. (...) The Wheel of Time. Ages come and go and come again as the Wheel turns. All the catechism. Here the Dark One's prison is whole. Here they drilled a hole in it, and sealed it up again. Here we are. The seals are weakening. But that doesn't matter of course. When the Wheel turns back to here, back to where they drilled the hole in the first place, the Dark One's prison has to whole again. (...) I'm not saying the Dragon Reborn will be the one to make it whole, not in this Age necessarily anyway, but it must be before the Third Age comes again, and enough time has past since it was made whole - an Age, at least - that no one remembers the Dark One or his prison."

You can see how this makes Herid Fel controversial.